British Council - Global Fellowship Programme

On July 27^th, 10 students from the UK visited Attakkalari for an introduction to contemporary Indian culture and arts. These Global Fellows – Connor, Haydon, Gemma, Frances, Helen, Aoife, Elijah, Jinal, Brook and Philip were accompanied by Mr. Ramesh Veluchamy – Project Manager at British Council, Chennai.

The students gained an overview of Attakkalari through an interactive presentation, then observed a class in the Diploma in Movement Arts and Mixed Media, and had an animated discussion on the relation between culture and politics in India. They ended their visit with a one hour practical movement module in Kalarippayattu.

Performance at Jaaga

In September 2009, Attakkalari was awarded the Robert Bosch Art Grant. Attakkalari was one amongst six recipients chosen for this grant which specifically seeks to support the talent and work of emerging artists. The awardees were selected from various genres including dance, visual arts and theatre. The artists were chosen after a three month rigorous screening of their work and projects. To celebrate the award ceremony the repertory performed in a spectacular site specific piece at the experimental artist space – Jaaga. This piece was specially commissioned for the Robert Bosch Award Ceremony.

Workshop with students from National Institute of Design

From August 24^th to August 29^th, 2009 Attakkalari conducted a special workshop on “Bodies in Space” with students from the New Media department of the National Institute of Design based in Ahmedabad. The workshop was led by Attakkalari's Artistic Director - Jayachandran Palazhy along with faculty and dancers from Attakkalri. The students have shared their reactions below:

“I became more sensitive to the relationship between my body and space – and enjoyed playing with negative and positive spaces.” – Rohini P. Shitole.

“The trust building exercises really helped. I also learnt to explore the floor with my body.” – Shailja Pahuja

“I learnt how motion from daily life can be transformed to dance.” – Kirti Anand

“Working together was never more fun. Understanding each others limitations and learning from one another.” – Pranav Gupta.

“We had never danced as a group, but due to the workshop – we were able to build our confidence as an active group….we realized that Everyone Can Dance.” – Sagar Raut.

Continuing Professional Development for Attakkalari Dancers

The Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programme is for Attakkalari’s own internationally renowned Repertory Dance Company. Integrating movement, medium and material, CPD aims to provide tools for continuing growth and education to the repertory dancers. The modules will include technique & choreography (Movement); costumes, props (Material); fine art, theatre, film, photography (Medium) amongst other subjects to help enhance the skill set and professional development of the Attakkakari dancers.

During April and May 2009, the repertory at Attakkalari took an array of capacity building workshops as part of the Continuing Professional Development programme for the repertory. These included sessions with Janet Lilly (from the Peck School of the Arts-Department of Dance, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee). Lilly focused on Choreographic Approaches – Weaknesses and Problems.

Sine all the repertory dancers are also education outreach facilitators – we invest heavily in our dancers by providing them capacity building. Last year in April and May 2010, the repertory had modules in the use of curriculum material in dance teaching with Shabari Rao, with Raghunandan on dance and theatre techniques. Bangalore based applied theater specialist Maitri Gopalakrishna helped the repertory analyze an experiential session to look at goals and impact, helped them share best practices in the class room, and access one’s teaching styles and principles through articulating and sharing. Education specialist Arzu Mistry helped the repertory develop tools for curriculum development. She addressed “teaching for understanding” and the multiple intelligence theory in her sessions.

(Combining Visual Arts with Performance: Photo Courtesy - Arzu Mistry)

In November, 2009 the repertory trained with Chris Lechner in contact improvisation and began ongoing classes in Classical Ballet with Clare Coleman. In December, 2009 – Ben Riepe the famous German choreographer conducted classes on choreography with the repertory.

In 2010, the repertory has been having ongoing modules in classical ballet, pilates, Bharatanatyam with Minal Prabhu and in the martial art form of Kalarippayattu with Raam Kumar. In May 2010 the Kolkata based duo Ronnie Shambik and Mitul Sengupta Ghosh conducted classes in contemporary Kathak and jazz techniques with the dancers. In May and June, 2010 – Mic Croitoru from Arizona State University in the U.S. conducted body conditioning classes with the dancers. The dancers are currently undergoing sessions with Chris and Christine Lechner in body conditioning, yoga and contact improvisation.